Summer Again
by blue-glass bell
Summary: Zoro and Luffy meet in a different life. A simple story of simple encounters. and cursing.
1. new beginnings hurt

summer, it comes again.

He ached all over. Zoro quietly made a mental assessment of his condition. Bruises everywhere, for sure. His lip was bleeding, as was his nose. He tasted the salt spread across his tongue. He tried moving his arms. Success. But hell, it hurt. His ribs didn't feel too good. His body throbbed with pain. Fuck. Shit. Zoro blacked out.

I will be the strongest.

The harsh buzz of cicadas echoed loudly in Zoro's ears. One eye was forced shut by a swelling black eye. He cautiously opened the other, and found himself staring up through the branches of a tree. Flecks of blue showed brightly through the green. Something was poking him in the side. Ug. Now it was jabbing him.

"Will you quit it, you-!" Zoro groaned. He mentally punched himself as pain stabbed mercilessly. He laid back down on the dirt as slowly as possible. Zoro pressed his one working eye closed, pain rocking through his ribs.

"Fuuuuck..."

"Hey! You're alive!" The jabbing stopped. "Boy, I thought you were dead! Even dragged you off the road and everything."

Zoro opened his eye again, and turned his head a little, trying to get a glimpse of his so-called rescuer. All he saw was two huge eyes staring into his own.

"Get your face away from me. Before I kill you."

A laugh burbled from the rescuer's throat.

"As if you could, in your state!" the figure drew back, undaunted, and the face of a boy drifted into focus. He continued laughing. "Strong aren't I? Draggin' you off the road, boy I'm strong!"

The boy stood up, still laughing. His voice was loud, even against the screeching cicadas. Zoro watched as he stooped over to pick up a straw hat that was left on the floor, and dusted it off nonchalantly. After he placed it on his mess of black hair, he turned to Zoro again.

_What kid wears a straw hat these days?_

"M'name's Luffy. Monkey D. Luffy, but most people call me Luffy." he said, smiling down at Zoro. The older boy decided to look away. "I'll go get some help or something, so hang tight. Oh wait, you can't move!" Zoro would've punched this kid in the gut, laughing all the time and now making fun of him. He just mumbled something incomprehensible in response, and watched as Luffy loped off, his long legs and sandals. The last thing Zoro would see for a while.

"Monkey D. Luffy. What a stupid name."


	2. sun

"Oi! I brought a doctor!"

Luffy was back.

"L-Luffy, I'm not a doctor yet!" a small, shrill voice cheeped frantically.

Zoro opened his eyes. Luffy's lanky figure loomed over him, holding an armful of what looked like toilet paper, while a much smaller boy, donning a giant pink tophat, stood meekly by.

"What's up with kids these days and weirdass hats..." Zoro groaned.

"H-Hey, this was a gift from my teacher!" the boy stuttered defensively.

Luffy grinned, and put a hand on the smaller boy's shoulder. "Okay, so maybe Chopper here isn't a doctor, but he sure knows how to bandage someone up."

"He has blue hair, Luffy!" Chopper whispered. But Zoro could still hear. _It's turquoise, god dammit_, he thought angrily. Strangely enough he'd never cared about the specificity of his hair color before.

"Ah whatever, green hair, pink hair." Luffy said reassuringly, "Will you help me this once?" Chopper sighed and gave in, but soon smiled weakly.

"If you help me lift him up, I'll look him over."

"Lightly broken arm, probably a few ribs as well... Fractured ankle as well." Chopper winced at the thought of the pain involved with these injuries.

"Man, who hates you enough to beat you up this bad, in an ol' country road." Luffy clucked, his facial expression miraculously switching from his ceaseless grin to mild concern.

"That's none of your business." The straw hat boy blinked, but looked away.

In a few moments Luffy and Chopper found themselves being glared at by a freshly-bandaged Zoro leaning against a tree. Chopper edged behind Luffy.

"A-are you s-sure this was a g-good idea?" Chopper whispered, "I mean, n-now he can just g-get up and be all violent and kill us!" The last words were half squealed in terror.

"Nah, he won't kill us." Luffy sat down and faced Zoro. He was staring again, what the hell. Zoro caught himself staring back, their eyes locked for a few strange seconds, until he hastily diverted his gaze. There was just something so weird...

"Anyways," Luffy suddenly broke the silence and adjusted his hat, looking up into the now setting sun. "I'll take this guy to gramps house. Wanna come, Chopper?" The younger boy quickly shook his head no.

"I-I've, uh, got some, er, plants to find. Yeah, plants!"

Luffy smiled as Chopper ran off down the road. "Busy little guy, huh..." He absentmindedly touched his hat. "Anyhow, we've got to go."

God, if Zoro was ever in the shape to punch someone again, he would punch this kid. With a merciless heave, Luffy lifted the older boy suddenly, forcible swinging Zoro's right arm over his shoulder. It took the product of years of self-training to keep Zoro from screaming aloud in pain. Instead, he happily passed out again.

Zoro woke once again. He could feel a hand resting on his head. The heaviness was comforting, in a way. Nostalgia.

The sun burned an orange from under his closed eyelids. Zoro's eyes opened. The light was dazzling, melting away into a sea of orange and pink. No, that wasn't the sun. That old ball of burning gas, millions of miles away, it wasn't the sun. The sun was something else. It was the smile, the wide eyes, still shining in the dusky shadow of a setting star.

"Oh, you're awake?"

* * *

God I meant to work on this more. But heck, school is cruel. And that rhymes, sadly.

I wasn't kidding when I told you this would be slow. I'm not exactly satisfied with this. Perhaps I'll rewrite it all when I'm done. Are you guys okay with the length of the chapters? Maybe they're a bit short.

and lol, Chopper. Hey there. Yeah, we'll be having s'more crossover characters.


	3. Who?

Zoro blinked as his eyes focused. He was laying on a cool wooden floor. A porch?

"Where am I?"

He felt the weight of the hand gently leave the top of his head.

"At my gramps house. Old geezer is out gardening or something." Luffy replied cheerfully.

"Who's an old geezer?"

A gravely voice barked from outside. A weather beaten old man, tan with years in the sun, climbed up with porch steps with surprising strength. A towel hung across his shoulders and a pointed shovel was gripped tightly in his hand. Luffy eyed the shovel cautiously.

"Who is this?" the man demanded.

"I have no idea!" Luffy said happily, immediately relaxing as he watched the shovel being put down against the porch rail.

With the glee in the boy's voice, Zoro half expected him to say "Can we keep him?".

The old man paused and looked over the older boy. "You bring home a kid you don't even know?" Luffy grinned in response. "I'm Garp." he grunted, "Nasty glare you've got there, kid." Garp wiped his glistening forehead with the towel. "You two make any trouble and I'll take you to the slammer m'self."

"I'm sure we can find our own ways there, Gramps." Luffy said with a smile. The remark earned him a cuff over the head.

"Either way, I'm going out to visit some friends. I'll be back for dinner. You best still be here, Luffy, by then."

The old man strode off the porch again, and hopped into what must've been the oldest, muddiest truck in the entire town, and drove off, in a cloud of dust and terrible love ballads blaring from the radio.

Luffy got up. "When he says that, he means he'll be drinking the night away with his buds at the bar. And he usually never finds his way back home until the next afternoon." he laughed. "So, where do you live?"

"..."

Luffy frowned. "Don't start on about how this isn't my business. I gotta get you home, y'know?"

"Why are you so sure I even have a home?"

Zoro rolled the words in his mind, wondering if he would regret them later. At this point in the game, he really didn't have much of a home to go back to any longer.

"Aw, what? You ran away from home?" Luffy grinned. "Bein' all cool, aren't you?"

Zoro said nothing. Surprisingly, the younger boy didn't pry any longer. Instead he just climbed onto the porch rail and sat, his back against the still setting sun. Leaning his head against a wooden beam, Luffy stared at Zoro. For a few awkward moments.

"You know that's kind of creepy." It was a few more awkward moments before Luffy actually responded.

"Oh! Sorry about that! I was just wondering about some things. I can't really understand you if I don't know you."

The hell? What was that supposed to mean? But despite his seemingly ridiculous personality, Zoro felt that this kid understood much more than he showed. It was unnerving. It was even more unnerving that there was a lurking desire to tell this kid about... himself.

"Well, if you don't want to talk, I will." Luffy said, breaking the silence. "Uh, I already told you my name... what else is there to tell you... Hey! That's basically everything!" He smiled broadly. Zoro wondered if that was supposed to be a joke.

"What about your parents, where you live, pets?" Zoro had no idea why he had just asked the question, but something compelled him.

Luffy scratched his head. "Oh, those kinds of things..." He frowned and crossed his thin arms. "Well, that isn't really saying anything about _me, _is it?"

"Where you live, what you do, who your parents are, you can't really understand a person just based on that, can you? I don't really like gettin' an image of a person based on what other people make them. I look at who they are right now. And the only way to do that is let nature take it's course." the boy said quietly, "And I don't mind that." He let out a bark of forced laughter.

"Sorry, I'm not too great at explaining my thoughts."

But that didn't matter much.

"I guess it's good that you think that way. Cause I don't really think I know who I am right now ."

Luffy smiled. "Maybe I don't either. But we can try and find out."

"My name's Zoro."

"Zoro? Well that's a start."

After a while, time found the two sitting side by side, Zoro nursing his arm with a bag of ice, Luffy chewing thoughtfully on a popsicle.

* * *

uggg... I don't even know. Sorry for being late, it's been what, months? I've had this sitting in a corner on my desktop for so long, but I never had the heart to pick it up because it was so ridiculous... Well I think at this point Zoro and Luffy have settled down, maybe Zoro's just delirious with pain but who knows~I feel like I have to work on understanding his character better.

It's been a really long time since I've touched this, so my apologies if there are inconsistencies. Boy their relationship is growing so slowly... They're being bros~ But isn't that how real relationships are? : ) Especially super awkward ones like theirs. GOD AWKWARD CHILDREN SKIP TO THE GOOD PART ALREADY

Also thanks for the couple of people who left me some reviews. Means a lot to me! -hug- I tried making it longer this time, we'll see how it works out.


End file.
